


Catharsis

by Measured



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-17
Updated: 2009-07-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 20:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: On the request of the administration, Soren tutors a failing student. What starts as pure chance spirals into something more, as Soren finds himself drawn inexorably to Ike. Together, they break through walls and find a single point of connection neither expected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> #28 - Replies / 11. less than a single waking glimpse Gauntlet challenge (maybe we should just call it THE GAUNTLET?). is kicking my ass at that.
> 
> This stemmed from r_amythest talking about a collab with tutoring and something or other but it’s not actually a collab because...I like this one too much to let her take a hacksaw to it?
> 
> This was originally one really, really, really long oneshot, but convinced me that it’d better paced if I split it up into an actual chaptered piece. It’s already mostly done (nearing 9,000 words!) Many thanks to her for that suggestion for my sanity, and a bit of input on the placements of scenes for pacing. Also thanks to myaru for listening to me whine. 
> 
> This is sorta but not officially for searains so she’ll stop opening every conversation with reminding me that I owe her stuff. Also it’s partially to Ammy’s request, though not exactly as I’d already started it before she asked.
> 
> This has been eating me so much lately I haven’t been able to write much else.
> 
> Thanks to HT for the remastering beta.

ca·thar·sis  
n. pl. ca·thar·ses 

1\. Purgation.  
2\. A psychological technique used to relieve tension and anxiety by bringing repressed feelings and fears to consciousness.  
3\. The therapeutic result of this process; abreaction.  
-The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary

Fall

Soren tapped the eraser of his pencil on the opened pages of his Advanced Mathematics course.

His student was five minutes late, thought that was to be expected. Everyone was tardy by Soren’s standards. He flipped through the pages to be done today. Chemistry, mathematics, history, most of the curriculum was to be attended to. Ike’s grades had taken a nosedive as of late. He had never been a genius, a C average student at best. Ike however was the star quarterback, thus it was almost cliche that the administrators of the school would take an interest in keeping him above water.

A certain administrator had begged him personally and though Soren had always refused to tutor students, this one and only time he had relented. He would have rejected the offer right away but hearing it had been Ike – _that_ Ike, he accepted the job. 

Not that he was doing this for free; the administrator had offered to pay him from his own pocket. Soren never volunteered for anything, unless it was for college credits. Even then, he would take a solitary job over human contact anytime.

Ike had a reputation. As the destined-for-a-sports-scholarship quarterback, he took the popularity that came from such a position nonchalantly, as if he didn’t notice it at all. He was the type to give his last dollar to someone he didn’t even know. In fact, the only time this strange sense of heroism didn’t come up was when it concerned food. 

Ike didn’t share his food unless there was a damn good reason to. 

Soren looked over the books for the third time. It crossed his mind to do his own homework while his tardy student was still absent. And if he didn’t hurry up, said student would be studying all by himself. 

Soren went through his supplies and glared at the pencil with its broken tip. He moved to sharpen it when he noticed a person standing in the open doorway. Ike had finally come.

Ike looked as if he had slept in his clothes, possibly more than once. Whether he actually had or if this was just a symptom of his overall slovenliness remained to be seen. Ike rested his hands on the table. He wore brown leather fingerless gloves that had seen far better days. There was a swash of faded red material over them.

Soren never wasted his time with formalities. 

“You needed chemistry, math, history and social studies help,” Soren stated.

And _you’re late_ he added silently.

“Oh yeah. I bombed those exams after...the funeral.”

Everyone knew the story, it had been a rainy day in a country not far off. Gallia was a beastly, wild place. Ike’s father had been shot by a man clothed in black, from his slate colored trench coat to his black suit, masked by a large pair of mirrored black sunglasses. He’d been shot in the lung, thus the death was not instantaneous. He’d coughed up blood and drowned inside himself. Ike too had been shot, in his left arm. He had tried to carry his father to safety and had managed three blocks before his father died right there in his arms with the downpour drenching them both. It had the feel of some old mafia movie; of something staged and thus far from reality, more a thing of fiction. It turned Ike into a legend, and cemented his status as part of the royal echelon the popular crowd. Before, he had been all possibilities. He had always shrugged off praise and never quite believed in what promise he might have.

Ike had returned a different person. He was stronger, more mature. He no longer shrugged off the praises. He accepted them without boasting or flaunting his talents. He helped out any of the underclassmen who got picked on by the seniors, and despite this, he gained popularity with those same seniors.

He didn’t shirk his friends and he didn’t care about the rise to power. Even being the darling of the school elite meant nothing to him. It was no wonder Elincia had a thing for him. And oh what a pair they’d make, for she wasn’t called “The Queen To Be(e)” for nothing. Everyone knew she liked him. She fell all over herself to drop her books and feign clumsiness when everyone knew she was grace itself. 

Everyone but Ike himself, that was.

Soren cleared his throat and brushed the extraneous thoughts from his mind. 

“If you’ll open your textbook to page 453...”

*

The proper procedural method of tutor and tutee in Soren’s eyes consisted of the barest of contact and conversation, only applying to the topic at hand. However, Ike did not appear to share those views. He talked to Soren in the hallways and waved to him as if their bonds went deeper. Soren was less irritated about this than he should have been. Despite Ike’s status as a well-meaning but essentially poor student, Soren didn’t hate teaching him. That didn’t make it easy, however. Ike was been prone to distractions, and he had no hidden aptitude to be uncovered in scholarly affairs. Still, despite that, it was...pleasant. And often the high point of his day, so it went. The weeks passed methodically, with few breaks from their course. Soren preferred this, and assimilated Ike into his schedule.

Today was little different... Still, it had been a reasonably productive session. Soren closed his books and put them into his bag in alphabetical order.

“Who’s going to pick you up?”

“No one,” Soren said coolly. 

“I’ll take you home. It’s the least I can do,” Ike said.

So his sense of honor wasn’t an exaggeration. Soren shrugged into his coat. It was light, made only for slightly chilly weather. The material was beige and just as threadbare as his slightly heavier, (but ultimately unsuited) winter one. It also doubled as his raincoat after a particularly bad storm had turned his last umbrella into nothing but twisted metal and shredded black material--the only leftovers of the carnage.

“You don’t need to. I know my way just fine.”

“I kept you late.”

Soren was too weary to argue. If Ike insisted on wasting his time by tailing along with him, then so be it. It was Ike’s time to waste and no concern of his.

It’d grown dark while they had been buried in their studies. It was cloudy, the moon showed through a haze and shapes and shadows of buildings and trees were nothing more than dark silhouettes in the the night. Ike slung both of their books over his shoulder, and carried them without a hitch. Soren hadn’t asked for this, but Ike apparently took it upon himself to do things like this.

The only illumination was the veiled moon and the ember of the lighter which touched the foul-smelling cigarette and then flared down again. Ike lifted a cigarette to his mouth and took a draw. He breathed out grey clouds that spiraled into nothingness. 

“I didn’t think you were the type,” Soren said. 

“I’m not.”

No person was a pillar; each would crack in their own ways. Maybe this was Ike’s. Soren remembered seeing the soles worn out of blood-soaked shoes and large, popped blisters when changing. Soren had realized those signs even then, before he’d taken to spending time with Ike.

He had watched his father die. There would be cracks somewhere.

“Give it to me,” Soren said. He took the cigarette from Ike’s hands.

Ike handed it over, and Soren pushed the cigarette to his mouth. It was still slightly damp.

“Pass me the lighter,” Soren said.

Ike cupped over Soren’s hand to keep out the wind. Their hands touched, brushed and stayed as flame floated there, looking as if it was suspended between them. 

“I didn’t think you’d be the type,” Ike said, almost wryly.

“I’m not,” Soren said. He lit up and breathed all those toxins in, and understood for once. Soren shuddered and dissolved into a fit of coughing as the smoke hit his unaccustomed lungs.  
Ike patted him on the back. Killing oneself by degrees could be so relaxing. 

“Father used to hate people smoking. He’d really lay into me now if he saw me...” Ike said. He trailed off, and his memories lingered like the smoke rising into nothingness.

And Soren said nothing because there was nothing to say. Condolences meant nothing; they were just words people brought out to act as if they could leave the confines of their own lives for two seconds. What was Soren supposed to do, trade stories? _When I was five I lived in the filth of my second adopted parent and walked over his corpse so I could pour myself some dry cereal. I stayed until his flesh began to rot--I would have stayed longer but I was too hungry._

“It looks like it’s going to rain,” Ike said.

The forecast had been for clear skies but now it was cloudy. A brisk wind came through, all fresh and sweet and new. Maybe Ike knew better, maybe he could smell the rain from that night. It wasn’t as if weather forecasts were 100% accurate. Yesterday they had forecasted a warm, sunny day, and it turned out to be particularly chilly.

Soren shook that thought aside. He was beginning to believe in Ike, and believing in someone was a dangerous thing. 

“The last forecast said clear weather,” Soren said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Ike said. 

As they walked home, Soren felt a drop on his cheeks, and then another, and another.  
It was raining. Ike had been right in the end. There was a scattering of thunder in the heavy clouds above them. Those few sparse drops soon turned far more imposing; they became a deluge.

Ike had been right.

“Can we make it to your place?” Ike said.

“It’s seven more blocks.”

Ike muttered a curse and grabbed Soren’s arm. He dragged them both towards the nearest awning. There was little room for personal space. Soren tried to draw his legs up to his chest and away from potential physical contact, but found it far too cramped. He simply had to make do with Ike’s legs resting against his. 

It had grown dark enough that the only illumination was the glimmering of the historically renovated streetlights and the ember of Ike’s second cigarette.

Rain pooled down about his feet and ran in rivulets through the gutters. Ike didn’t ask anything, and Soren offered nothing. After a long drag, Soren held out his hand and Ike passed along the cigarette. Soren took it and fell deeper into this addiction.

*

Soren opened the door to his house. A crack of light formed over the floor, breaking the darkness of the shadowed room. The faint light came from kitchen, where Stefan sat at the table, drinking black coffee.

“So nice of you to finally join us,” Stefan said.

“I had tutoring job,” Soren said.

“Ah, of course you did,” Stefan said.

Soren scoffed. “What are you going to do? Ground me?”

“No. It’s good to see you actually socializing for once. And here I thought you were turning into stone.”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Why don’t you stay up, tell me about your day?” Stefan said, a wry tone of mocking in his voice.

“Go die,” Soren said. He closed the door to his room and set his books aside. He could hear the low rumble of Stefan’s laughter through the door.

It’d been far quieter ever since Sothe had reunited with his sister and Pelleas had been taken off to be some rich woman’s lapdog. Now it was just him--which Soren preferred. He had to split the room with Pelleas and Sothe before, which had only left him with high blood pressure and a very deep dislike of the place.

He half thought Stefan had made them sleep in the same room just for his amusement. He sure seemed to laugh over all their annoying ways.

Soren stretched and yawned. He could still taste the bitterness of cigarettes on his tongue.

*

 

Later that night, the skies reopened and the deluge began all over again. Soren turned his face to the window. A flash a lightning illuminated the rain-streaked pane of glass.

Rain always made him remember.

The first time Soren had seen Ike, he had been standing outside, below the second story window, laughing with some of his friends. For some unknown reason, Ike had turned and looked up. Their eyes caught for a fraction of an second. Ike did not smile, but his constant frown softened into something else. Something kinder. Ike waved. Soren shaded his eyes, but made nothing more than a terse nod as a response. And even that was generous, near munificent by Soren’s standards.

Someone beside Ike said something and drew his attention away, and Soren returned to the study at hand. Thinking back, Soren couldn’t say why he looked outside. He never cared for the sports-playing types or girls with their halter tops and short skirts. Maybe there had been a sound which had drawn him nearer. Maybe he had been giving his eyes a rest. Soren didn’t let himself linger on the minor aspects. 

This did not forge some inalienable bond between them, that kind of thing only happened in banal, formulaic teenage fiction. But through it all, Soren began to notice him through the sea of meaningless faces after that. 

What a minor thing, to be acknowledged. And yet, Ike was the first to do it, if ever so slightly.

Ike was the first person Soren bothered to remember the name of. If he came up during a conversation, at times Soren’s attention would flit away from schoolwork, towards the topic at hand. It’s not like he cared for the gossip itself, for such trivialities rarely interested him, he was merely there for news about the person in question.

Sometimes, they would hush as Soren walked past, but just as often, Soren could slip through them — a shadow, a nobody who might as well not be human in their eyes. He was beyond something to be bullied; Soren was an untouchable in their schoolyard caste.

Soren kept to himself. He avoided the cliques and spent his spare time studying. He was brilliant, of course, but also highly caustic.Not even teachers could stand him, but that was fitting. It was constructed just as Soren wanted it. 

He walked alone and kept company only when he wished.

*

Soren pulled at his locker. Not for the first time, it’d become stuck. He entered his code again and pulled. Nothing. Soren exhaled, a hiss through clenched teeth as he tried again.

At this rate, he was going to be late.

Soren heard steps behind him as a few girls tittered at his plight. Their tittering reached an entirely new level of inanity as some ‘hunk’ walked by. Soren pointedly ignored them all the more as he inputted the code yet again.

“Here, let me.”

Ike reached over him, and Soren had to move his hand away quickly, otherwise Ike would’ve pressed his hand over Soren’s about the handle.

“Don’t pull the door off,” Soren muttered. 

Ike tried again, and this time the door did give way. It swung open to reveal Soren’s sparse and tidy storage space.

Ike peered inside, almost as if he expected to see nude models taped to the sides. Or maybe it was just idle curiosity. Soren couldn’t tell. 

Soren collected his things and turned back to Ike one last time.

“Thank you,” he said, entirely unused to such social conventions. Still, even if Ike wouldn’t care, he felt as though it should be said.

He cleared his throat and said it again, louder. “Thank you. For that.”

“It’s no problem,” Ike said.

“Yes. Well. If you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to be late for class. And Ike... I hope you weren’t thinking of skipping out. That would make my task that much harder,” Soren said pointedly.

“No, I don’t skip.” 

“Good..”

They didn’t share many classes, for Soren was in Honors Classes, and Ike was barely making the grades as it was. And they of course, shared no social circles. Had this tutoring job not appeared, Soren would’ve likely gone all through high school without saying two words to him.

Serendipity struck at the most inopportune times.

*

Hours later, Ike actually managed to be on time – even by Soren’s standards. In fact, for once, it was Ike who was waiting with his book pulled out, and not vice-versa.

“Do you have your assignment for History?” 

Ike frowned as he sifted through his binder. After a few minutes of managing to make it even _more_ disorderly than it already was, Ike gave up.

“I can’t find it. Can’t I just borrow yours?”

“I take Honors classes, Ike,” Soren said. “It doesn’t work that way.” 

Ike returned to looking, but his haphazard movements only made Soren twitch. 

Soren sighed. “Let me see.”

Ike passed the binder over to him. 

Soren opened it. A picture taped to the front inner cover greeted him. It was a split-second snapshot of a young family. There was a woman with hair the same shade of blue as Ike’s, as well as a man he recognized as Ike’s father from the news reports. Beside them, a much younger Ike and a young girl he assumed to his sister regarded the camera. Mist was smiling, but Ike gave the camera a more determined glance, as if the camera were his rival. 

He felt as if he had touched something ultimately private, had become a voyeur to someone else’s life. 

Ike fingered the rim of the photo with affection. “I was five then. Mist was about two. That was the first day we moved over there. I remember there being packing boxes everywhere. There wasn’t even any mattresses on the bedframes. We had to sleep in sleeping bags for a week. Of course, dad just called it camping, and we all loved it.”

“I see...”

Ike’s tone became tinged with golden warm nostalgia. According to social conventions, it was now his turn to share in this nostalgic time. However, Soren had nothing worth sharing. There were no golden tinted memories to bring out and chuckle over. There was only hunger,fear, and constant rejection. Nothing else, and certainly nothing worth telling to an almost stranger.

Soren pulled out the needed paper and smoothed out the crease marks instinctively. 

“Back to the topic at hand... The subject was the Visigoths.” 

“Those kids who wear all black and hate the world?”

Soren cleared his throat. That fit him a little more than it should have.

“...No. We already went through this. The Visigoths were—”

Ike’s pencil was poised over the blank paper, its movements making idle squiggles and doodles on the originally pristine page. His stomach growled, as if on cue.

“I can’t study like this,” Ike said. He pushed his chair back and stood up fast enough to almost knock the chair over, as if he’d been waiting for an excuse to do so.

“I’m sure Mist has made something by now. Most of her stuff is even edible.” 

“You’re inviting me....?” Soren said. 

“Mmmhmm. You’ll probably survive her cooking.”

Soren could picture the sort of sibling rivalry and spats between them just from the scant bits of conversation that had included her. 

It would be foolish to turn down a free meal.

*

Not too long after Ike’s father had died, their house had gone into foreclosure. Ike had tried to hold onto the house and its memories by taking up a job. This was yet another reason why he’d been failing every subject before Soren’s tutelage began.

Needless to say, his endeavor had failed. By then, Ike and Mist had been legally taken in by a friend of the family (and once a near lover, according to some rumors) and her clergyman husband. They’d been appointed as guardians should this death ever occur; it was as if Ike’s father had known he’d die all along.

In this house, they set out to make new memories and leave the old as a place to be entombed, a graveyard for ghosts to dwell within.

This house was one of those fix-it-upper types, one far different in size and shape from Ike’s first residence. Soren only knew this from the picture. He stepped inside, in time with Ike. In a place like this, Soren seemed smaller, slouched down and compact. He was no more than Ike’s shadow here, nothing more than a transient specter to be forgotten soon after.

Ike set his books down carelessly as soon as they were inside. They tipped over. Soren immediately bent down to right it. He twitched at the disarray of poorly written notes and how Ike’s History textbook was carelessly placed before Calculus. He sorted them into the proper alphabetical order and rose to find Ike bemusedly staring down at him.

“What?” Soren said. 

“You never can abide a mess, eh? I’d better keep you away from my room then.”

“It would be for the best. Besides, it would be more efficient at the kitchen table.”

Ike chuckled, but said nothing when faced with the glare Soren sent his way. Unfortunately, Ike seemed immune and otherwise impervious to glares of any kind. Ike was prone to frowning just as much, and any sour behavior on Soren’s part slid away, harmless. 

“Anyways, I’m starving. I can’t work like this. Want anything from the fridge?”

“Anything is acceptable,” Soren said.

“No allergies?” 

“None.”

“Good. Where is Mist anyways? Ehhhh. I’ll just get it myself.”

However, the phone rang before Ike could leave.

“Could you get something?”

Soren wandered to the kitchen only to find it occupied by a rather amorous pair. The girl – Soren assumed her to be Mist, giggled and flung a bit of cake batter at the older boy’s face. 

It was some green-haired jock from the football team. Soren could never be bothered to remember names. 

He wrapped his arms about her, and she laughed as he placed a kiss on her neck. She flicked a bit of spilled icing off of his face an balanced it on the tip of her finger, teasing him as she led him on, his neck craning as he chased after the sweet cream. Then, at the very last second, she plopped the cream into her own mouth. His payback was to kiss her, long and hard. It lasted for several moments, with Mist moaning into him, before Soren lost his patience.

“Excuse me, Soren muttered. He was used to this situation as an amorous couple was prone to making out on the locker next to his. He opened the fridge door as they broke apart from their frantic hormonal liplocking. 

“Oh, sh...Ike’s home,” he said.

“Guess it’s time to be back to normal.”

She took a deep breath and frowned far too comically to ever be serious. 

“Boyd you idiot! I can’t stand you!”

She slammed a cupboard door for good measure and shared a conspiratorial smile with Boyd.

“Don’t tell Ike, ok? It’s our little secret, Ike’s-friend.”

“It’s of no concern of mine,” Soren said. He gathered up what he had come for, turned on his heel and left her to whatever teenage girl flirting she wanted to do.

“Thanks friend-of-Ike’s!” she called after him. “I’ll remember this!”

*

According to what Ike said, Soren surmised that the rest of Greil’s coworkers came every night for a family dinner of sorts. (When Soren asked about the occasion, Mist had cheerily said ‘Dinner!’) There were two more brothers of the green-haired jock Mist had been flirting with, as well as a corrosive redhead who came smelling of alcohol. He was the one most likely to miss these dinners, and this seemed to gall Titania to no end. 

After the kitchen incident, Mist came out only slightly rumpled and worse for wear. Ike seemed oblivious to the slight blush and Mist’s habit of giggling and kicking her paramour under the table. He seemed to be the only one in the room to do so as the redheaded male was rolling his eyes, while the other brothers, Titania and the redheaded man’s foolish companion all seemed charmed by what was blossoming before them. 

Rhys bowed to say a blessing before the food. Soren and the redheaded man kept their eyes open, both too much skeptics to even feign polite acquiescence to Rhys’ faith.

Soren had never had the feeling of belonging. It was such an illogical feeling, for he was the outsider here as much as any, and yet it was one that felt strangely comforting.

He pushed it aside. It was charisma, that deceitful front. The group of them with their flaws were charming in a quirky, homey way. But Ike especially was likeable enough to impose illusions of closeness onto people without even trying. It was his utter lack of artifice and his acceptance that gave that semblance of a connection already formed long ago.

To someone as affection-starved as Soren, these illusory bonds could be so tempting. 

Their world was separate from his; it was as if a glass dome had been erected between them and all he could do was peer inside with longing. Wistful for a connection he himself could never obtain or even dream of.

This was no future of his.

*  
Soren had gathered his books. It was far more trouble to carry the heavy textbooks by himself,  
almost so much that he missed Ike’s presence, if only as a book carrier. 

Ike was laughing with a friend of his. The mischievous, wild child Ranulf (someone so popular and infamous, even _Soren_ knew his name) swatted Ike on the shoulder. The green haired jock who’d been flirting with Mist joined in. They looked so carefree, so happy.

Soren lookedon from afar, The untouchable looking inwards to places he would never belong. 

Wistful. Wanting.

This world that Ike inhabited, Soren wanted to remain a part of.

*

Two days later, he was back at Ike’s house. Ike had gone separately and it was Soren’s turn to come up the sidewalk by himself, without Ike’s leading him and telling him that it was truly ok for him to cross the threshold. When he did find Ike, he made note of the little things. Soren had a careful eye for details. When Ike took off his shoes, he saw the red stains, still sticky and far from old. Soren didn’t broach the topic of other people’s problems. He didn’t entrench himself in their lives, but the detail scritch-scratched itself into the back of his mind, like the tapping of fingernails on glass.

Ike noticed his gaze. He shrugged it off. “I got a few blisters walking. These shoes don’t fit that well.”

How long could Ike have walked to bleed that much? Had he even noticed at that point? Or had he been remembering, caught up in another day? Had he worked his muscles until the sting was a constant affirmation? Or had he just not noticed it, being too full of memories for there to be anything else?

This wasn’t the first time it had happened, but it was the first time it bothered Soren. Before, it had been a simple, accepted fact of Ike’s grieving. Now, seeing Ike injured troubled him. Ike was a sliver under his skin, and the problem was that now he cared if Ike lived or died.

Was Soren the only one who saw the fractures that had begun to form? As much as they had put Ike on a pedestal after his father’s death, something deep and voyeuristic in them was waiting for Ike to break. It was the epitome of despicable human nature, wasn’t it?

So this was to be his breaking: miles walked, and a pack a day. Compared to some (himself included), Ike was freakishly well-adjusted. Still, the sliver pricked at him, the thorn dug deep. 

“I’ll go get some bandages.”

Soren turned, a step away. Wet, sticky red prints seeped into the carpet. Soren was aware of the feeling now. _Caring_ was a prelude to connection. A thread to bind, to ensnare and entangle. 

To strangle.

It was all becoming clear to him now. The heat and wistfulness, the wanting of that bound, happy place that was not his. Everything was in focus, and as he caught sight of Ike’s face, something within him fell.

He knew. The first shot fired against his walls had been that glance, that accepting glance. As fleeting as it had been, it was the beginning of everything that Ike represented and was. Acceptance, family, caring. 

Soren did not meet Ike’s eyes as he bandaged the wounds, or again that night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 30_ways: #23 - What you say, what you mean / The Gauntlet, 26. I would stop running, if knew there was a chance. Actually, I’ve finished the whole of it, but you won’t see 3 & 4 until tomorrow (or at the very least, later today) for several reasons, tiredness, last editing and flist spamming amongst them.
> 
> Also, that makes my current Gauntlet challenge at 7 (and at 17). Woo for Lucky Sevens!
> 
> And finally, some minor edits were made to the first installment for clarity, and the final result of this was a little over 12,000 words for the curious.
> 
> Thanks to HT for the remastering beta.

Winter

Soren fingered the fringe of matted, unraveling thread in his coat. He needed a new one, but couldn’t afford it anytime soon. That was life in its purest form; everything had a monetary value and his current one was not enough. Money made the world go around, not love. Only fools and dreamers would think otherwise.

If he could just make a bit more, just a bit, perhaps he’d find some elusive freedom. He certainly couldn’t trust anyone else for help on this endeavor. 

Soren remembered begging for scraps and living. He remembered the constant pangs inside and how he watched each person, wondering if this one too would pass by him as if he were nothing but gutter filth.

Not one stopped. No, not one. 

The fear had already begun to rise in him, like cold digging in during the fall nights. He had thought that it was conquered with his sameness, the rituals, but now this change clawed at him. He knew. He knew, and the certainty came with the clocklike beating in his chest.

He knew.

*

With the money he’d received Soren bought exactly three units of nonperishable foods (nuts, something reasonably healthy and easy to put in far places.) The rest was to be deposited within a hidden place which would have to substitute for a bank account for the time being.

When he reached his blank, orderly room, he pulled out the pristine sock drawer and shoved the packages deep down. He smoothed the lines of black, grey, and white socks over the stash. When he was sure it looked inconspicuous, Soren closed the drawer.

Sometimes Soren woke in the middle of the night to check and make sure the food hadn’t been stolen. There were other caches of food behind books and between clothes. He always kept a few packets twisted into the lining of his worn book bag. Something within him never could quite accept that starvation wasn’t going to come and haunt him again. If anything, at least he would be prepared. 

*

Their studying became a routine. Every day after school and after Ike’s practice, they’d meet up at the gates and go from there. At first it had been to the library, but since he would inevitably invite Soren home for dinner anyways, they simply skipped the middle step and took it straight to Titania’s residence. 

He came home later and later. Each time the silent house that awaited him and the sliver of light into the dark rooms became harsher after the warmth of Ike’s place. Soren set his books down, neat and precise, so they wouldn’t fall.

Stefan leaned against the doorframe. “I see you seem to be getting along well.”

“Shut _up_.” 

“Ooh. It seems I hit a raw nerve. So let me give you some advice of the world: these things never work out. It’s best to give up on the inevitable,” Stefan said.

Soren looked away from Stefan’s penetrating, knowing gaze. They were all things he himself would’ve said.

“...why are you even bothering to talk to me?” 

“Heh, it’s like looking into the mirror at what I was ten years ago.”

Soren turned on him. “Che. Don’t project yourself onto me. I’ll do as I wish. It’s of no concern of yours.”

“My, is that any way to treat your father?” Stefan said in mock horror. He held his hand over his chest where his heart purported to be.

“You’re no blood of mine,” Soren shot back.

Stefan tilted his head. “But I did take you in from the cold. Shouldn’t that count for something?”

“It counts for _nothing_. The minute I’m eighteen, I’ll never darken your doorway again.”

“You break my heart,” Stefan said sardonically.

“You don’t have one to break,” Soren shot back.

“Fine. Trust the boy and have that trust betrayed because that’s what life does. It betrays. If you give someone your trust, they’ll eventually find some way to gleefully shatter all the faith you put in them.”

“You’ve told me to get out more, to be more congenial and open—”

“Ah, you _were_ listening after all. I wasn’t trying to get you to open up, I was trying to get you to be a little more pleasant. It’s boring to hang around a stoic all the time. I never said anything about trusting anyone. I don’t trust you, you don’t trust me, and neither of us trust the world. We’re alike in that way.”

“So you were trying to get me to live a lie?”

“The world’s a lie inhabited by nothing but empty, vapid liars. Guess what? I’m a liar too,” Stefan said.

“...you’re incorrigible,” Soren replied.

“But of course. I’m human, aren’t I?”

“At times I truly wonder,” Soren said.

“Of course I’m human. I’m just filthy enough to be one. And you, you’re the same. Just as selfish and cruel as all the other humans out there.”

Stefan crossed his arms, stuck in his own cynicism. The battle had been won and Stefan was the definite winner. And so it was. Soren had the scars and hunger pangs to prove that the world was not a kind place. How could he believe otherwise when all proof lead him to the same conclusion? 

*

Soren kept to himself even more than usual. He avoided places where he would usually run into Ike, and focused simply on his detachment. _This is nothing. He is nothing. You are nothing._ It was a mantra, a refrain that sang through his mind with a thousand voices. With the woman, the scholar, and every foster parent who had faced him with the identical plastic smile.

Soren managed to continue like this until about lunch. It was then that the rhythmic mantra was broken. He always ate alone, as far from the noise of the cafeteria as possible. His meager lunch was in a bag on his lap. Ike’s voice broke the spell of _Nothing, nothing, nothing,_ in his mind. 

“There you are. I was looking for you,” Ike said. “I saved you a spot.”

“I don’t like it,” Soren said. He hunkered over his sandwich like a starving animal. Ike’s eyes upon him made Soren want to flinch back. He hated having anyone watching him while he ate.

“The cafeteria? No. I don’t go there.”

“Are you sure? There’s pepperoni pizza.”

“I said I’m not interested.”

Ike shrugged. “There’s salad too. If you’re into that kind of thing.”

“...Why are you still here?” Soren said. “I said that I’m not interested.”

“Because we’re friends?”

Soren stared down at the floor. The food he’d just wolfed down felt stonelike in his stomach. Nausea swept over him in waves as Ike stared, studying him. Learning him. Understanding just what a pathetic person he was, a person who had never quite left the gutter trash childhood behind.

_Nothing, nothing, nothing—_

“Don’t make something out of nothing. I’m your tutor. As soon as our business transaction is finished, so will our interaction.”

“‘Interaction?’ What are you talking about? Like this was some business transaction – Do you really believe that, Soren?”

Soren whetted his lips. He couldn’t look Ike in the eye.

“...Yes. I do.”

Soren threw the rest of his food into the wastebasket. It was physically painful to do it, yet the mere sight of it left him nauseated. 

*

When Soren got home he stripped off his clothes and went straight to the shower. Something felt putrid inside him, like a blister about to break. A part of him had _wanted_ to go with Ike, even knowing how out of place he’d be among the muscleheads Ike hung out with. Even knowing that it would hurt more when their bonds were severed if he gave into these foolish longings. Still, he wanted it.

Wistful. Wanting.

His skin was ruddy from the merciless rough bristle of the scrub brush. The water was relentlessly hot. Soren scrubbed as if Ike were a virulent form of flu he could expunge from his body if he just scoured hard enough.

Sobs caught in his throat. He felt lightheaded and dizzy, as if the world was moving, moving, moving and he couldn’t find a single patch of solid ground.

The sameness of his days had been broken. His routine had changed with Ike, and the assimilation had been so complete that Soren hadn’t even realized that through it all, he cared.

And that was the worst thing that could happen.

It was breaking, this control, his even rhythm. The walls were no match for warmth and a promise of acceptance. Breaking, breaking his cocoon and last guard. Open was vulnerable. Nothing good came of trusting, for in a world this abysmal, this cruel and twisted, the only thing could come was pain. The shower sang with the sound of _Nothingnothingnothing_. It rung in his ears, hollow and final and ultimately true.

*

 

The next day, Soren canceled the appointment. The inevitable result was Ike ending up on his doorstep. A part of him hoped that Ike would take the hint and simply let him fade into a forgotten memory, but Ike wasn’t quite so easily cast aside. 

The knock came later, as Soren washed his hands, the lather a nest of bubbles flowing over him. Stefan answered the door and must have told Ike where he was, for not long after there was the sound of footsteps and a door creaking open.

Ike turned off the hot water before he said another thing. Soren’s hands were raw from scrubbing, and his skin under his clothes even more raw. 

_Nothing_......

“What’s with you? You’re acting weird all of the sudden,” Ike said.

“Nothing,” Soren said, as giving voice to the mantra, the song in his mind.

“‘Nothing’ wouldn’t having you all in fits over...whatever this is.”

“Surely you’ve heard enough gossip to make up your own story by now,” Soren said.

“I don’t pay attention to gossip,” Ike said.

Soren whetted his lips and took a breath. Where to begin? The starvation, the verbal abuse or the abandonment?

Instead, he didn’t. He turned to Ike with all the sourness and bitterness he contained. All opponents to his sameness must be dealt with swiftly, before the rhythm was broken irreparably. 

“Why did you even bother to come here?”

“Because you’re my friend. Because when friends freak out for no reason at all and cancel appointments, I check on them. That’s what I do.”

“I don’t have friends,” Soren said. “Why are you still bothering to be here? I don’t want you around. I don’t want this–”

Ike wrapped his hands over Soren's, and held his trembling until he was still.. “Soren...what is it? If you don’t let it out you’re never going to get any better.”

Soren took a sharp intake of breath. “You... You want to know so badly?”

“I want to know what’s wrong,” Ike said.

Soren turned away. He didn’t dare look at Ike. With no calming ritual, Soren wrung his hands in a way that was far too telling. .

“I’m not one of your ‘projects’,” Soren spat out.

“Projects?”

“You...you’re always helping people. Saving people from bullying like you’re some kind of hero.  
Why are you doing this? Why are you even here? I don’t need this! You’re wasting your time.”

“Because I want to be here,” Ike said.

“You... You’re lying.”

_People don’t want to be near me. I’m...nothing. Less than nothing. Gutter trash in a vile world._

“I don’t lie, you should know that already.”

No, Ike’s problem was far more a case of being too blunt with the truth. And from that truth came his own, tumbling out, spilling onto the floor, broken. It came out almost involuntary, like the purging of some deep held poison.

“I’m.... I’m an orphan. I spent time on the streets. I nearly starved to death and now I’m in foster care. I’m nothing, less than nothing: gutter trash. There. Are you happy now? Is that good enough for you? I’m a product of this _wonderful_ world and its stellar social services.”

Soren hadn’t even begun to skim the surface of his life. There were cold nights and frostbite, the constant filmy feeling of hunger, and everything else in between, all remaining like a ravenous void inside him.

“And?” Ike said. “I’m supposed to be bothered by this? With the way you were building it up I thought you might confess to drinking human blood or a stack of bodies hidden in the cellar or something.”

Ike put himself in Soren’s line of vision. Forced him to face him, and the kindness he presented. 

“I’m a freak, all right? I’m come to terms with this. It’s not as if I need all these banal cliches of so-called ‘happy endings’— I live in the real world and I’m _fine_.”

“If you’d come to terms with it then you wouldn’t be holding yourself like that,” Ike said. His voice was soft, comforting.

Soren looked down. He held at his arms just above each elbow. 

“D-don’t you dare pity me. I’m not...n… not...” 

“You should know me better than that by now.”

Soren’s lower lip quivered and he bit down on it. Hard. Hard enough to draw blood. It didn’t stop the shaking, for it came from deep within him. It was the imploding of something seemingly strong, yet built with flimsy wires and rhythms and sameness. His sameness had long ago broken, and his bitterness was a mere pretense, a foregone snapping for a battle long ago lost. Still, he clutched to the only things he knew: cynicism and bitterness. The things Ike offered were foreign to him. Yet, something floated to the surface. Something that too had been held back for a long time, since that first glance and first acknowledgment. Such a fragile, meaningless moment. Such a precious thing.

Soren took a breath, and the words came from deep inside. Without thought, with nothing less than the expression of the secret that had once been there, tied tight.

“...Ike, I.... I took the job because....because it was you. Because I thought you might be different, even if just a little.”

“And am I?”

“Yes, you’re different. You’re not like them. I thought it might be a ploy at first, a way to fool people...but it’s not.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Why do are you concerned about this? People never care about me and I don’t care about them. That’s my life. That’s how life works. People are selfish beasts who can’t see beyond their own lives to ever bother with another human being.”

“I care,” Ike said.

Soren stared down. He wasn’t used to this. His knees felt weak. He wanted to curl up in a fetal position and wait for the thick heat of the panic to leave him.

“Come here,” Ike said. 

“No..... I’m not...”

“Then I’ll come to you.”

Soren found himself buried against Ike’s chest, his hair being stroked as if he were a child.  
Soren wasn’t used to this. He’d never been cared about or held. The few times people had come close to showing any interest, it had been for his own skills, for themselves and their selfish reasons. 

But here, a person existed who wasn’t simply using him. It existed. It existed.

Of all the people who had told him he meant nothing, Ike disagreed. Every action, everything he had said had been such a stark contrast to everything else Soren had ever known. It left him terrified and yet was what he desperately wanted. Here he was, in Ike’s arms, sobbing like a _child_. When he was younger, he had never cried, not even once since his infancy. Each rejection was taken with a blank face, and later, with the same vitriol.

Somewhere within him, the refrain stopped. For once, a tiny voice inside Soren began to disagree with the sea of voices, and to agree with Ike’s sole dissent. With that acceptance, there was no going back. It frightened Soren to be on the precipice of something he could very well lose, and yet... the seeds of devotion had already begun to sprout. He’d follow Ike anywhere. Ike was proof that the world wasn’t entirely doomed, wasn’t entirely selfish and evil and horrible throughout it all. To the ends of the Earth, to whatever path Ike took. Soren would never leave his side.

But there was no going back at this point. Beyond that was a realization of something that had always been there. Happiness was such a delicate thing. If Ike ever left or tired of him, he would return to the exanimate routines and it would be that much worse for having known the kind of living that was out there. That possibility always hung close, putting a damper on his first touch of hope.

Earth was that much more vulgar after having a glimpse of heaven.

*

Soren took it in small steps. First, he tried simply walking home with Ike every day, and then he dared to go into the cafeteria. He eased into the routine of familiarity. He accustomed himself to the temperature of warmth, though he was more often than not, just as acerbic as ever.

Today, he passed all the unpleasant people and took the steps towards Ike’s table as if he were balanced on a rope bridge that threatened to snap with the slightest breeze.Ike patted the seat beside him, and Soren walked forward, without looking at anyone else about the noisy, bustling cafeteria.

“I can’t believe I’d see the day _you_ were late for anything,” Ike said.

“A teacher kept me after class,” Soren said.

“Ah, Nealuchi?”

“I have to fill out my volunteer quota some way. There’s nothing quite like mandated volunteering. What isn’t to love about the school system?” His voice practically dripped with sarcasm.

Ike split his sandwich in two and placed a half before Soren.

Soren blinked for a moment. The sandwich half still remained there, proving it was not some trick of the eye or mirage.

“You’re sharing your food with me? I didn’t think that was physically possible,” Soren said.

“Hey, I can if it’s really needed.”

“My impression was that touching your food meant death,” Soren replied. 

Ranulf leaned in and gaped in mock horror.

“You’re _sharing your food_? Man, you must be in love. Head over heels to actually split your meal with someone. When I was hungry, he was just all ‘Tough shit, go get it from someone else’.”

“I was not,” Ike said, with a laugh. “I _said_ that you could probably get a whole sandwich if you asked Lyre or Kyza.”

“And I did. In fact, they both bought me lunch. Scariest double date I ever went on.”

“..Double date?” Soren queried.

“You know, a date with two people at once. A date, but doubly so!”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Soren said.

“Pffff. Fine. I’ll call it an _awesome_ date instead. Although I did barely escape with my life that time...it was uh, certainly _memorable_.”

Both Soren and Ike stared at Ranulf as blankly as was physically possible. 

“Fiiine, I’ll let you two go off and make out in a closet or something. Wouldn’t want to get   
get in between the ‘Love Birds.’”

Soren suddenly became very interested in his food.

*

Stefan was drunk. Oddly for once, it was a happy sort of drunkenness and not his usual cynical personality merely magnified tenfold. He’d said he’d been out to meet someone, and Soren didn’t want to know. Really, he didn’t. If Stefan had a romantic life, Soren didn't want to know.

Stefan grinned at him. He was seriously plastered. 

“Pfff. Your problem is that you’re not popular with people. Now, if you just started dressing like Sothe, you’d get out more. And if you got yourself a girlfriend – or boyfriend, you’d be a lot happier.”

Soren stared blankly, his mind breaking in the worst possible way.

“What are you–”

“I’m telling you that you should go get laid, kid.”

“...you are the worst father in the world.”

*  
As the weeks waned, they studied. Nose to the grindstone, unrelenting study for the coming exams. Ike steadily kept on, and Soren used what patience he had to teach Ike the basics. 

Whatever patience he had within him, it was Ike’s. It was the least he could give.

*

Ike waved up a markup. Three instances of B-, two C’s and one D. Not even Soren could help Ike figure out Trigonometry, but it’d been a passing grade. Everyone knew Ike wasn’t about to go to Harvard anyway.

“You passed,” Soren said.

“I did!. All thanks to you, that is.”

“Well, here’s hoping I can just keep it up until graduation. My GPA is pretty much a lost cause, though,” Ike said.

“I didn’t think you cared about such things.”

“I don’t really, but father wanted me to go, and I don’t foresee winning the lottery anytime soon. I guess I’ll just have to experience the joys of student aid.”

“So this is it...” Soren said.

But something within him fell and quivered, like a bird shot through with an arrow. This was the end of their involvement. What else was there to bind them together?

“Mist’s expecting you for dinner. She says you practically need your own placemat now.”

“...You still want me around?”

“I thought we went through this already. I told you, you’re my friend. I’m not giving up just because you’re on some weird angsting trip.”

“....all right. But only if your sister isn’t making meatloaf this time.”

Ike smiled at the attempt of humor, a near first for Soren. He smiled back, although only slightly. Soren wasn’t used to this camaraderie, and it felt odd in the best sort of way. Like waking up to realize that a wound had healed over and the pain was no longer a constant bedfellow.

Spring was coming, and with it came the thawing. Soon the ground would be free from winter’s icy clutches and all the apathetic white melted into something new and beautiful. It only took some time, but it was inevitable. Even the coldest of winters would cease eventually.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #27 - Forgive without forgetting / The Gauntlet, 7) I wished your dust to intermingle with mine 
> 
> Thanks to HT for the remastering beta.

Spring

The melting came earlier. A deception, as it would surely frost over and this warm spot would become nothing more than a teasing slight.

Soren still kept layers and warm things around for when the cold snap would return, but Ike was as reckless as always. There he was, waiting outside, with no extra coat should things turn sour.

Stefan smirked, yet seemed oddly sad. He lacked his usual sharpness.

“Go on. He’s waiting for you.”

Soren slipped outside. He didn’t bother to respond.

Ike waved in one languid, slow move as his hand streaked across the air.

“There you are. I wanted to say goodbye before I go.”

“—Goodbye–? What— You’re leaving?"

“Mmhmm. For Gallia. I have some things to sort out there. It’ll only be for a couple of days.”

“When?” Soren said. 

“Tomorrow, or the day after that. It’ll take at least a day to get there and I don’t want to miss the last of school.”

A part of his universe had turned sideways and he was reeling. Soren had begun to suspect that Ike had embedded himself in the foundation of his life, a thought which was both comforting and deeply terrifying. This proved it. 

And thus, a choice. It was made before a thought was even cast. 

“...I’m coming with you.”

Everything was jumbled and stuck within him. Something within him was crying out. _Don’t leave me behind. Don’t go without me. Don’t go!_

Ike looked back. He said nothing for a long, blank moment, and then he smiled.

“Alright. There’s room for two where I’m going.”

*

Ike was quiet on the drive over. He seemed caught up in the threads of his thoughts, or the echoes of his memories. Soren could not tell which. He had never seen Gallia, but the scenery did not interest him much. Trees, trees, trees and more trees. Perhaps if he was more interested in biology, he might feel something, but as it was, the green blurs meant nothing. Less than nothing, as worries kept him locked tight. His catharsis had passed, and now it was Ike’s turn. But he was no comforter and when the time came, what else could he be but a burden? 

*

They had to abandon the car and walk through the dense underbrush to the place that Ike sought.

Ike used his pocket knife as a machete, albeit a poor one. It was humid, and they were like bugs trapped in glass in this climate. Sweat glistened and dripped down Soren’s forehead.

Ike pulled his t-shirt off and tied it lengthwise about his waist. Muscles rippled under his skin, and Soren found himself oddly hypnotized. 

_Must be the heat...._ he muttered.

“Didja say something?”

Ike turned to him and brushed his sweat-drenched hair out of his eyes. His forehead band was soaked. He was...very well built. Of course Soren would expect nothing less, but being confronted with it was as startling as a slap to the face. Ike’s shoulders were wide and his chest was broad. Soren turned away, flushed.

The heat had definitely got to him.

*

The path veered on, with less sticky and rough brush to traverse. Ahead, there was a dirt path full of deep ruts. It was terribly muddy, and Soren’s boots sunk deep into the guck, all the way to his ankle. This was a place where few had ever been. Years had passed with the landscape as an empty, echoing, cavern of trees. Soren wondered why Ike’s father would’ve ever taken the trouble to go to a meeting in this desolate place. Had he known the person who would take his life? Had it been a meeting gone bad?

Ike never elaborated, Soren never asked. It was something locked too tightly to ever divulge on a scene by scene basis. The mysteries would have to stay in the same enigmatic limbo of Ike’s memories. 

Even when the time came, some things would never be known.

*

They came upon a bend in the road, which lead to a clearing. It looked like a perfectly innocuous clearing, one that could be in any painting for all its seemingly peaceful nature. From Ike’s face, Soren knew this was the place. He stared for a long time, and finally came to a spot in the middle. He said nothing, but Soren knew the war must have been looping repeatedly inside his head. 

Ike walked on, through another path, for three block’s distance before they came upon a fortress in ruins. Surely it had once been grand. An imperious place to keep out to keep out all enemy forces that came across it. But now, it was a graveyard those fallen soldiers, Greil among them. The elements had washed away any and all traces of the blood. 

Ike felt the wall, and Soren could almost hear the words left unsaid  
 _When it dried it had looked like rust stains. Something so common, so extraneous. His father had died there. He had slumped against the wall, against his own wounded son and bled out. Breathed his last breath. Expired._

Soren said nothing for he never had skills in comforting and likely never would. His hands hung uselessly at his side. He was a few paces behind Ike, merely offering the only thing he could: someone to listen.

He took steps forward until he was beside Ike. He wanted to touch Ike, to clasp their hands together, to cling tight to him. But what good would it do? His hands were too cold, too small, his shoulders too slim to carry any burdens, his lips too thin and grim to offer any spare hope.

In the end, what was he but gutter trash? Something to be cast aside, useless.

“His last words were a request. He wanted me to live happily and not chase after revenge.”

“If that was his wish... then you should,” Soren said 

“When father first died, I wanted to kill that man with my own hands. I practiced swordplay and I took to the shooting range and I started looking for him. I would’ve dropped out completely if I could, but father made a clause in his will about me leaving school.... I guess I worried Mist and everyone with how I was acting.”

“Ike...”

He felt Ike’s arm over his own shoulder. Even in a time of his own grief, here Ike was comforting him. 

“It’s ok, Soren. Don’t fret about it. Sometimes these things just happen.”

Sometimes children are born to those who throw them away. Sometimes they are taken in by those who do not truly care and sometimes they cling to life by the dregs of a half-remembered moment, a memory.

Sometimes beloved fathers died without warning. Sometimes no one could do anything about the cruelties of life; they simply had to pick themselves back up and keep walking on.

The rain fell on the just as well as the unjust .That was the way of life.

*

Everyone knew that Soren would be the valedictorian. It’s why they had prepared a guest speaker and specifically cut his speaking time to nothing. Thirty minutes of berating the hypocrisy of the school system was something they wanted to avoid. Soren had thought a short, concise outburst about the incompetence of the school administrators and the overall futility of the world would be a welcome change. The administrators did not agree.

Still, he was glad to be spared the trouble at least. It gave him time for more important things.

The black outfit hung on him, making him look like a gaunt Ichabod Crane. Ike and Boyd fared better, but Soren looked like he was drowning in fabric (or possibly trying to scare small children).

“This hat is ridiculous,” Soren groused. 

Ike pushed the fringe from Soren’s face. “I wonder who came up with this stuff.”

“I never cared to check. He must’ve been drunk.” 

Ike laughed. “Soren, you’re–”

Whatever Ike had been about to say, it was was drowned out by Ranulf’s _Heeeeyyy guuys!_. 

Speaking of drunk.

“What do you mean they’re useless? I found plenty of uses for them.”

Ranulf opened up his robes to reveal a large amount of contraband alcohol.”

“I’m sneaking out early. Ike, Boyd...Soren? You guys coming? This is the last party before we’re college students. We’ve got to celebrate _and_ practice for the epic college parties!”

“Geee, sounds fun, but Mist’ll kill me,” Boyd said.

“Titania has a thing planned. Besides, parties aren’t really my thing,” Ike said.

“Why are you even bothering to ask me? You already know the answer,” Soren said.

“Always the blunt one eh? You and Ike make quite the pair.”

Soren turned his attention away to the view outside.. This outfit was entirely too hot. Soren brushed at his cheeks, but the heat remained.

From the windows, they could already catch sight of everyone who had gathered outside in the uncomfortable metal folding chairs. Titania, Rhys,the whole group was there. Even Shinon came, though that might have been for the after party alcohol. For all Soren knew, he was one of the _distributors_.

Ranulf sidled up beside him and peeked out from over the top of his head.

“What’d you see? Something cute?”

Soren scowled at him. “...why are you here and why are you talking to me?”

Ranulf laughed, and Boyd came to see (possibly checking to make sure that no one was ogling Mist. Ike joined for possibly the same reason.)

“Wait, isn’t that your dad?” Boyd said.

“Stefan isn’t my father,” Soren said.

“Who’s that with him?” Ike said.

A very tall, very musclebound bearded man sat beside Stefan. His hair was a bluish grey in this light, and his clothes had an eastern flair. From here, Soren could see that Stefan’s hand was on his knee.

“...I don’t know and I don’t want to,” Soren said. 

Soren turned away and tried to get that thought out of his mind.

“Soren, you’re going to the party at our place later, right? Mist made sure to tell me to tell you to come.”

“Of course, Ike.” 

“Wait, you were going to have a party without me? No fair, Ike. I thought we were bros,” Ranulf said. He pouted, threw an arm over Ike’s shoulders and leaned against him. 

“It’s a family thing. Low key. Not relevant to your interests,” Ike responded.

Soren frowned. He wanted very much to displace Ranulf from Ike’s arm. “I believe it’s time for us to leave.”

His voice was thinner and more irritated than even he had intended. He shook his head to clear the fizzing, buzzing feeling of _something_. The sharpness that was the equivalent of breathing in powder, his lungs turning in on themselves. 

*

The party afterwards was in their compact backyard. Lighted yard lanterns on sticks were scattered around the place. The citronella candles still didn’t drive back the insects. Soren kept at the sides, head down. The menagerie of people was the same mix of family and friends that came for dinner. . 

They didn’t ignore him per se, it was more that they realized he preferred to not be asked meaningless questions. Ike’s family was good for that at the very least. Soren stayed close to Ike’s side and sipped his punch, waiting for a chance to be alone.

It came when it’d grown late and the rest of the family was too tipsy or tired to keep up much of the usual conversation. Ike looked to a far off place, between the lines of lights to someone else, a memory, another time.

“Ike...”

“I wish he’d been here,” Ike said.

Ike didn’t have to voice anything more. The football games, college graduations they’d never spend together. The first jobs, raises, advice never given, cars never fixed together. 

Soren laid his head against Ike’s arm, and held on, clung tight. What he could not put into words, Ike would merely have to read between the lines.

“I’m alright. I just miss him sometimes. I think I always will. That’s life. You just keep on going on.”

The lights faded down on their Graduation party. Soren refused to let go, and eventually fell asleep with his head laying on Ike’s broad shoulder.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 30_ways. #30 - Love / The Gauntlet: 18) We all are in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars.
> 
> Well, that’s all folks! Thanks to Myaru, Saaski and Searains for offering support, suggestions and corrections. Thanks to HT for the remastering beta.

Summer

Spring melded into summer all too fast. 

Soren was a staple at their house now. In fact, if Soren didn’t show up, Mist and Titania would come asking about him. He fit there with them, it was now his place as much as theirs.

For a short period, there would be no books, but that didn’t mean Soren would be leaving Ike’s side anytime soon. 

Soren sat, legs crossed, and peered out at the scene reflected through the window. Earlier, Boyd had been spraying Mist with a hose. Their laughter and her shrieks of delight had carried into his ears. Now it had grown dark clouds covering the stars, much like that rainy night months ago. How much had changed since that first cigarette? So much that looking back had felt like looking at another person, a character in a story, a mere piece of fiction.

“Mist and Boyd went off to some Basketball game.”

Ike’s derision of the sport was innocent, and yet blunt as always. Ike never lied and tried to pretend he was fine with things he didn’t care for. It was one of Ike’s many idiosyncrasies, one of the many facets Soren had learned during the short time he had come to know him.

There would be time to learn more, surely there would.

Ike sat beside him on the bed. His hand was coarse, in contrast to Soren’s sharp, angular face. The heat of the contact was a surprise, the sheer gesture of it more so.

“Mist says that I’m horrible at these kinds of things.”

“...T-these kinds of things’?” Soren stuttered out. The words stuck to his throat as he said them. His pulse raised to a frenetic pace from the contact.

“This is the part where I go ‘I love you’, I think,” Ike said.

Soren’s breath caught. “I-Ike....”

It was all the things building inside him, all the things he couldn’t bring into coherence or tell. Had Ike known all along? Or perhaps every time he’d accepted or reached for Soren, it had simply been a step towards this moment.

“And this is the part where I kiss you.”

“...yes, that’s the par—” 

His words disappeared into the kiss, dissolving into the crushing softness of lip on lip. It wasn’t earth shattering. It was clumsy and slopping, their mouths met at odd angles. It was not the kind of kiss shown in movies or written in novels, but it was a step forward. It was a change to them and their boundaries, and most of all, the sameness. This was the last stage to be broken, and Soren accepted this. Whatever it was, he would take it. Even if the fear came, oppressive and suffocating, they’d find a way out of it together.

His hands were beneath Ike’s shirt, determinedly pushing it up to reveal more skin. Ike returned the favor, his hands up the curve of Soren’s back.

There was a long scar on the palm of his hand, from a shard of glass that had broken apart when dropped. He had been a mere child grasping at something bright. She had slapped him over the face for that. Before she could clean it up, he had taken the piece of glass himself, and she had done nothing. It had grown infected and she had crossed her fingers and hoped that this useless little devil child would rot away so he could be thrown out just like any common refuse.

Ike grazed over these unspoken histories of pain, his fingertips and his callouses to Soren’s scars. It was like telling secrets without ever having to move his lips. _I had to touch the strings until my fingers were bloody._ and there _I walked barefoot until my feet were bloodied and filled with gravel and grass._

Soren traced over where the bullet wound had been. _I watched my father die._

There was a large scar across Ike’s chest. ( _training accident._ ) and one on his leg, downwards ( _broken leg from attempting to fly at age five._ )

And there was a mutual understanding, one that needed no spoken language to convey. They kissed, they touched, and their bodies learned a language of comfort; of possible happiness held together by hands clasped.

*

Soren woke. His hair had tangled in the night (not surprising, give how he’d been pushed into the sheets.) He ached all over. He twisted slightly and felt the touch of Ike’s skin all over again. Warm and smooth, the feel of his hands skimming over the line of Ike’s thighs was a reason why to sleep in.

Mist looked in. She giggled softly for a moment _I called it! I called it from the beginning!_

Soren inwardly sighed and buried his face against the sheets. They wouldn’t be secret for long.  
They only had graduation to go, and that was only weeks away. 

Mist’s interruption had broken the spell of sleepy intimacy. Soren disentangled himself and padded to the floor. His clothes were in shambles. He grimaced at them. Still, there was no choice. He pulled his pants on, and was just about to pull his black t-shirt over his head when he heard a groan.

“Good morning,” Soren said. He couldn’t quite keep the smugness out of his voices. He’d gotten Ike into this groggy, drowned in sex look, after all.

“Mmn,” Ike said.

Soren guessed Ike had never been a morning person.

“Mist came in. I’m sure you’ll be dealing with her fangirlish glee for weeks afterwards,” Soren said, quite flatly. 

Ike groaned into the pillow.

“I’m sure she’s made breakfast by now. Perhaps it will be a special variety in ‘celebration’.”

Ike perked up at the mention of this.

“With bacon and eggs and pancakes?”

“Perhaps,” Soren said.

This was the magic word that roused Ike from his bed. He leaned up, far more clear-eyed than before.

“Are you staying for breakfast?”

Soren shook his head. “No. I should head back. I have some things to take care of.” 

“Ah. ...Soren. Come by later, will you? I’ve got something to show you.”

“Yes, Ike,” Soren said.

*

“Consummated your true love, I take it?” Stefan said wryly when Soren opened the door.

He looked over Soren appraisingly, taking in the wrinkled clothes that had spent the night on the floor in a heap (something _only_ impromptu sex could’ve caused, as no matter how tired, Soren would’ve folded his things.) to his unbrushed hair.

“ _Indeed_.”

“My life is none of your concern.”

Stefan sighed. “You never change. Here I thought finding someone would make you at least a little more pleasant.”

Soren simply gave a long scathing look before turning on his heel. He could hear still hear the sound of Stefan chuckling at his expense. 

At least this time Mordecai wasn’t there trying to be the father figure he never had and giving him bone-crushing hugs. There were some things to be appreciative of, after all.

*

Soren hadn’t expected the drive, nor had he packed for it. He knew the highways before Ike even said where they were going. This time, Gallia was a far gentler locale to spend time in.

The place they stopped off at wasn’t the jungle fort, but a kinder field. There was a fort that lacked the malevolence of the first. It seemed merely between owners. Its rusted doors and bent panes seemed nostalgic and quaint in their own, bucolic way.

Soren swatted at a mosquito, and Ike handed over some spray. It put a damper on the place, but that was life. Nothing was truly idyllic in the end.

“Did you even tell Stefan you’d be gone?”

“No. I doubt he’d notice my absence,” Soren said. 

“You know he probably cares about you in his own way,” Ike said. His hand sought Soren’s shoulder and Soren didn’t shrug him off. 

“...Don’t just assume things,” he said. 

“He was the one who told me to go after you. I was going to let you be for a few days so you’d cool off. He even mentioned something about how if I ‘broke your heart’...”

Soren snorted. “He probably did it for his own amusement.” 

The grass was wet with dew. They weren’t close to the ponds, but Soren could still hear the _chreep chreeping_. It was a cloudless night with the universe on display. There, Orion, and there, Cassopia. Whole religions had been formed of this backdrop, many lives had been spent looking up. Soren’s interest was only mild and scholarly. He was far more interested in the person beside him.

Soren heard the sound of a pack being shuffled, and saw the light of a flame to ember. After Ike took a drag, Soren held out his hand for his turn.

The only lights save for the stars were the embers of a cigarette passed from mouth to mouth, compressed by two different sets of lips from each turn. Somewhere, the frogs droned on in their mating calls. Perhaps it was music to other’s ears, but it certainly wasn’t to his. He found no inspiration in such things.

“An infernal racket...” Soren muttered.

Ike chuckled. “I don’t mind them as much. I guess it’s because I was raised out here, even if I don’t remember it. It must be in my blood.”

More like subconscious memories.

“I should quit,” Ike said. His fingers were stained with tobacco , while his clothes still reeked of the caustic scent.

“I can order materials when we return,” Soren said.

“Nah, I’d go cold turkey.” 

Soren knew that Ike would succeed. He would fight and he would overcome the addiction. That was just the kind of person Ike was.

“Hey, where are you going to college?”

“Hmmm. I haven’t picked yet,” Soren said.

“Let me know when you do,” Ike said. “I’m probably going to go to the community college if at all. You could come live with us if you go around here. I really don’t think you’d like dorm life.”

_You could share my home, share my bed, share my life_

Soren said nothing. His thoughts overflowed into thousands of oceanic pooled pockets of different worries. Ike could tire of him, throw him out, find that he preferred women – but Ike filled the silence instinctively, and he said exactly the right words without ever truly saying them.

“Living happily, huh,” Ike said. “I could try that.”

He lifted Soren’s chin and stole a quick kiss, a faint brush of lips that was slightly moist and warm and electrifying. Soren stared up, not quite surprised, yet not quite used to the attention as Ike smiled down at him.

Love was not a heal all, a balm to cure the rest. It would not erase the past or bring back Ike’s father, but it was a bandage. Trust stemmed the bleeding, comfort dulled the pain. This would not change them entirely, but Soren thought that maybe he could learn to live happily too.


End file.
